A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

Hate is a lack of imagination.

Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt

Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content: the quiet mind is richer than a crown.

People who like quotes love meaningless generalizations

I called the desert into a storm.

I came, I saw, I concurred...

You know, surprisingly, they don't sell a lot of brains in the local 24-hour grocery store around the corner from my house.

I just got a new iPod. It's got 80 gigabytes. Because I like to jog for three weeks at a time and I do not want to hear the same song twice.

The kinds of claims I make about knowledge are thus meant to be illustrative of a general argumentative strategy which might well bear fruit in areas of philosophy which I have not thus far explored.

I want kids to understand that making pictures is similar to making music; there are so many instruments and so many tunes that the possibilities for how you play are truly limitless.

At Murry Bergtraum High I wanted to be as different from my father as possible. So I acted out in school, I was very anti-authority.

What's the best angle to cut someone's throat? Well, usually from behind. That's usually how it works.

Value investing by its very nature is contrarian.

A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.